1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a low-power encryption apparatus and method and, more particularly, to an encryption apparatus and method that are capable of providing a mobile fast block cipher algorithm that supports low-power encryption.
2. Description of the Related Art
Block ciphers are key elements that are most widely used in encryption applications that are applied to the communication of a variety of types of devices and the security of stored data, and mainly function to encrypt data on a specific length (64-bit or 128-bit) basis and provide confidentiality. Furthermore, block ciphers are used for hash functions, message authentication code, random number generators, etc. In order to meet these purposes, block ciphers should be designed to have features suitable for the characteristics of devices and encryption applications, and are implemented as device-specific chips or software that is run by the CPU of a device.
In the case of hardware chips, the development of the chips has many limitations because of their marketability, developing cost, interoperability with devices, etc. In contrast, the application of software implementation has expanded thanks to the evolution of CPU performance, etc. However, in the case of software implementation, there are many environments that are associated with limited resources. In particular, mobile devices with batteries, such as the smart phones that have been popularized recently, are problematic in that power is consumed by the running of software. It is known that an internationally standardized block cipher having the best performance now increases battery consumption by 70% or higher during continuous encryption, compared to the case of no encryption.
Meanwhile, a block cipher technique that was developed for the purpose of H/W encryption operations in an ultra-light and low-power environment was disclosed in a paper entitled “HIGHT: A New Block Cipher Suitable for Low-Resource Device” and published in the workshop on the Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems in 2006. However, the block cipher technique that was disclosed in this paper is problematic in that it has vulnerability in terms of safety and requests a relatively large number of cycles from a CPU in order to encrypt data in a software environment.